Rocketship schools show promise in their redefinition of teaching

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Despite having a lot in common with other privately-run, publicly-funded charter schools, Rocketship Academy defies conventional wisdom about how to operate an urban elementary school, but so far, Rocketship students score among the top performers on standardized tests.

Rocketship students spend as much as two hours a day in one-on-one Learning Lab sessions with a computer, where they learn virtually all of their basic skills from computers, freeing their teachers to concentrate on more advanced ideas, like themes in books, during class time.

The chain currently has only seven schools, but but its founders want about 2,000 schools in 50 cities, serving as many as 1 million students, by the end of the decade.

From the article:

SAN JOSE — Luis Zepeda is relentless. The fourth-grader, his dark hair cropped close, has been staring at a computer screen for close to 20 minutes, trying again and again to solve a devilish little puzzle built around rectangles' axes of symmetry. Two friends appear, offering unsolicited advice and urging him to try their solutions. Nothing works, and their teacher, who could offer help, is nowhere in sight. ...